


Panic Room

by Theonewithmanynames



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Anxiety Attacks, Guns, Non-Graphic Violence, One Shot, Prey (2017) - Freeform, Spider Anxiety | Virgil Sanders, Spider Imagery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-06
Updated: 2020-08-06
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:33:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25743643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Theonewithmanynames/pseuds/Theonewithmanynames
Summary: Where does Virgil go when Thomas slips into a full on anxeity attack?... What is 'Anxiety' attacking?
Kudos: 93





	Panic Room

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this shortly after the Accepting Anxiety videos, but was unsatisfied with it, so it sat in my unfinished works for a while, before I recently decided to restart it from scratch. I'm still not 100% happy with it, but it's done at least.
> 
> Could conceivably be set anywhere after Fitting In, as everyone is in their season 2 outfits.

Virgil hugged his knees, trying to calm his breathing and therefore the shadows that swelled with his panic.

It had been a while since he had to retreat to this part of his room, but the Sides' usual arguing had devolved into a screaming match that had caused his alarm to slip enough that Thomas had felt it. 

So the anxious side had fled.

Patton, of course, was the first to notice that the anxious side was missing. And while Roman and Logan were still yelling, their host looked about ready to throw up or hyperventilate. Or both.

"Uh, Lo? Could I get a hand here?"

The logical side quickly snapped to attention at the normally cheerful man's strained tone. He found the fatherly side trying to soothe a very clearly distressed Thomas (though not doing a particularly good job) but when he looked to the stairs to check on Virgil's status, he found him missing.

"Oh dear,"  _ that is not a good sign,  _ "Patton, back up, overwhelming Thomas with conflicting emotions will just cause him to dissociate. If you can, try to find Virgil."

The other nodded, looking worried, but left to do as asked. Roman looked like he wanted to say something but knew better than to interrupt the teacher when he entered crisis mode.

"Thomas, can you take a deep breath for me? That's it, in for four seconds… hold for seven… and out for eight… once more, in for four…" Logan ran through the breathing exercise with Thomas for a couple minutes, and while he did seem more alert, it didn't appear to help with his distress, so the logical side decided to try something else. "Okay Thomas, keep breathing deeply. I want you to get yourself a glass of water, and sip it slowly."

Patton returned then, looking nervous, and waited for their host to walk off to the kitchen.

"He's in his room, I'm pretty sure, but I couldn't find him… I think he locked himself in the hall closet."

"Ironic." Roman muttered under his breath, but didn't comment further after both of the other sides shot him eerily similar looks that clearly said that  _ now is not the time _ .

Thomas returned, still following his breathing exercise well, but drinking the water probably faster than he should have been.

"Take your time, Thomas," the teacher reminded him, "there's no rush."

"Where's Virgil?" The man rasped.

"It seems that Gloomy McDoom took the flight part of 'fight or flight' to heart."

"We should go get him, yeah?" Thomas asked.

"I wouldn't recommend it," Logan replied, "while theoretically, calming Virgil  _ could _ shorten the duration of your anxiety attack, it would mean you temporarily going into his room to retrieve him, thus increasing the intensity of your distress."

"We can't just leave him alone though," Patton pressed, "can we?" 

"I say we go get him," Roman said, "it's not very cool of him to just leave in the middle of an issue."

"Removing yourself from a situation that makes you anxious is exactly what you're supposed to do!"

The two started bickering again, and Thomas felt his anxiety begin to tick up again. His breath audibly wheezed as it fell out of the careful pattern he had established, and everyone stopped what they were doing to allow him to get back into the rhythm, realising that arguing was not helping.

“It’s up to you, Thomas,” the logical side stated calmly, “you don’t have to do this if you don’t want to take the risk. Your anxiety attack will eventually end on it’s own. Virgil will return when he feels up to it.”

The man thought about it for a moment, worrying about all the ways it could go wrong, but it was his concern for the anxious side that finally won out.

“I want to at least check on him,” he said, “on one condition; no arguing. I won’t be able to handle it if you guys start fighting again while we’re in there. Can you promise that?”

Roman and Logan looked at each other for a moment, before turning to Thomas and nodding.

“I will do my best to refrain from any more disputes.”

“You have my word.”

“To Virgil’s room then, I guess,” their host sighed, chugging the rest of his water before sinking down, leaving his empty glass on the coffee table that was usually moved from where he stood.

Instead of rising up in Virgil’s version of his living room, they all found themselves in a room that didn’t even exist in Thomas’s house, that none of them had been to. Instead of cobwebs, the corners of the room held shadows that seemed to swell and sway towards them. There was no furniture and the ground was cold concrete. The anxious side himself sat in the very center of the room, hiding his face in his knees.

Patton cautiously crept towards him and knelt just beyond touching distance, before gently calling out, “Virge?”

His head jerked up so fast that Thomas flinched, and revealed eyeshadow streaked and smudged by tears. His eyes scanned the room with lightning speed, before freezing on his host.

" **_You brought Thomas here!?_ ** " Virgil cried, and suddenly the whole room seemed to echo a loud metallic CLANG, which made the following startled silence all the more jarring. " **_oh no… no, no, no, no, NO!_ ** "

"Kiddo?" the fatherly side hesitantly asked, "That noise didn't sound good, mind filling the rest of us in?"

" **_You're trapped, you're all trapped_ ** ," the anxious side practically whimpered, " **_this is the Panic Room, it locks once Thomas's anxiety reaches past the point I can contain it._ ** "

"That's fine, right?" Their host asks almost hysterically, "it should unlock once I calm down, yeah? So we just have to wait here a bit."

" **_Except that it's not locking to keep things out,_ ** " Virgil replies, and that's when everyone notices that the shadows that soak the room have escalated from their gentle bubbling to a rolling boil, " **_it's to keep things in._ ** "

"What sort of 'things'?"

"Physical manifestations of negative thoughts, yes?" Logan guessed, getting a shaky nod from Virgil.

"Could we weaken them somehow?" Roman asked, "Make Missy, or even Remy?"

Thomas had no idea what was going on anymore. It felt like someone had replaced his blood with pure adrenaline.

"It would be unwise; we have no idea how that could affect Thomas." 

"Then we'll just have to fight them off the old fashioned way!" The creative side exclaimed, calling upon his blade, only to find himself empty handed. "My sword!"

" **_This is still technically my room, princey,_ ** " Virgil said, taking a deep breath and conjuring weapons for everyone, " **_only I can summon stuff here._ ** "

"What's this?!" The other cried upon being handed a large wrench.

" **_Trust me, you'll want something blunt for this,_ ** " the anxious side replied, " **_unless you'd like a morning star?_ ** "

"I'll shut up."

So Roman had a wrench. Patton was given a large device that shot globs of… something, that could incapacitate whatever it hit. Logan was given a Pistol. 

And Thomas was handed a shotgun.

"Woah! Are you sure? Because I've only ever held one of these for a video, and it wasn't even loaded, and-"

" **_Thomas,_ ** " Virgil interrupted, " **_we're going to protect you the best we can. But if anything gets too close, shoot it._ ** " 

"What about you? What will you be using?"

" **_I'll be fighting fire with fire._ ** " 

The anxious side took off his hoodie and sprouted four new limbs. Thomas startled and nearly shot him in the face.

Inky tendrils grew from his back, looking like spider legs. His eyes were pitch black, and Thomas could see the veins surrounding them were as well, his make-up smudged as it was.

All the sides had formed a loose circle around them, and as soon as Virgil stepped outside of it, the shadows finally overflowed.

Thomas could see now why the anxious side looked like that. The shadow creatures skittered towards them on four legs, very reminiscent of spiders despite being the size of cats, jumping on the walls to launch themselves at the group. 

Roman and Patton teamed up, with the creative side smashing any that the latter managed to incase in goo. Logan was taking pot shots at the ones farther in the distance. 

And Virgil had dived right into the fray, slamming and tearing with his new limbs, stomping with his boots, and shifting quickly around the room to wherever the densest groups of creatures were, just a blur of dark purple until he was right on top of them.

Occasionally, the roiling shadows would spit out a humanoid figure, but the anxious side was quick to destroy them.

At one point Thomas saw a spider creature that had been left alone for too long grow more legs, shiver, and then split into four new creatures, before Virgil cussed and used his own inky limbs to spear all of them at once.

A few times, one would slip through the Sides' defences, but a single shotgun blast was able to take care of them easily enough.

Eventually, the shadows calmed, and the creatures dwindled to nothing. 

For a moment, panting was the only sound in the room. Every side was wearing eyeshadow thicker than Thomas had ever seen on Virgil. The man wanted to walk over to Patton to begin checking on everyone, but found his legs shaking, barely able to hold his weight, let alone move. He was suddenly exhausted.

Adrenaline crash.

There was the quiet click of the door unlocking, a deadbolt sliding open, and it was so anticlimactic that Thomas just lost it, giggling madly. 

He was only sort of paying attention as Roman and Virgil ducked under his shoulders to support him, as the anxious side's spider legs disintegrated out of the corner of his eye, and as he was dragged out of the Panic Room and then to the mindscape proper. 

As the last of the jitters faded away into fatigue, Thomas caught the two sides carrying him exchange serious looks and seem to come to an agreement of some sort. The hands on his hips pulled away, and there was a dizzying moment where he thought he might be falling as the shoulders that were keeping him standing disappeared suddenly, before he was caught around the waist by someone.

"I got you, gurl, just take a nap for a little while.”

The new character gently pulled him onto the couch with them, and he had just enough time to see sunglasses before his eyes drooped shut and refused to open.

He was asleep before his head even hit the pillow.

**Author's Note:**

> A lot of the imagery of this is taken from the 2017 game Prey - if it intrests you, go check it out!


End file.
